


Tissue

by TheOtherCourse (kanevixen)



Series: The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth [9]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanevixen/pseuds/TheOtherCourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately following Wary, Kristiane has not reacted well to Tom’s news about his filming Midnight in Paris. With the long distance wearing her down, Tom has to convince her that he still cares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tissue

**Author's Note:**

> “Kristie? My petal? Can I come in?”

Burying my head under my pillow and clutching another to my chest, I burrowed under whatever I could, ashamed that I allowed my emotions to get the best of me. I tried to stay calm, collected, together, but one man got to me. Tom was a part of me, and didn’t like feeling weak and defenseless against his charms and broken promises.

I was so looking forward to wrapping my arms around him, holding him, looking into his eyes, spending time with him, being with him. In a flash, all that was gone and I was facing another couple of months of being ignored by the man I loved. He would pretend I don’t exist as better for me, and my light at the end of the tunnel dimmed, almost completely extinguished in the utterance of my name.

“Honey? Do you want your phone back?”

I didn’t move, wallowing in my misery. I didn’t want my phone back. All I wanted was Tom to come and visit, hold me, love me, kiss me. This endless waiting was killing me slowly, when every inch of my skin burned for him.

“Baby girl? Tom wants to speak with you.”

Holding the pillow tighter against my head, I tried blocking out my best friend’s soothing cadence, almost sing-songy voice nestling through the cotton fibers of the sheets and the synthetic down pillow to live in my ear. Tom wanted to speak with me. Why now? Why this time?

No doubt to put me off again, urge me to date other men as a renouncement of any link to me, only to return to me when it was convenient for him. I couldn’t do that again. These months of not being a part of his life, or as him a part of mine hurt, hurt like hell, and I didn’t want to fall into that again.

“Kitten?” I felt the mattress sink under Terry’s weight as he sat beside my fetal position. His hand ran comforting circles upon my back, enticing me out from my wallow in self-pity. Maybe it was the promise of something more for a week, snatched cruelly from my grasp that I was reacting to. Or my naiveté that there was a hint of a possibility that I’d found someone who thought I was worth pursuing, even in his distant way. I don’t know if I just didn’t want to face the endless fucking waiting – again!

“Flower? Tom wants to talk to you, sweetie.”

Where the hell did Terry get off changing his tune? Another about-face from the two men I loved the most, Tom with his ‘I love you’s, 'I’m not visiting’ and Terry’s 'Don’t talk to Tom’, 'Here, talk to Tom’ - I couldn’t cope.

Angrily I tossed my pillow away from me, my tears scorching down my face as I sat up and shot look to kill towards my roommate. “Why? So he can say goodbye and ignore me for another two months? Why should I talk to him when all he does is hurt me?”

As I said it, the ludicrousness rang in my head. Tom didn’t always hurt me, but at that moment I was lashing out with bitterness, frustration and pure disappointment at all that I was denied. I was selfish and silly, but hopelessly in love and I yearned to go back to that fairytale week. I was wallowing and I wanted to wallow.

Terry squeezed my phone between his shoulder and his ear, I assumed listening to Tom on the other end. My best friend zeroed in on my hands and took them in his. Softly, after a long pause, he agreed, to Tom, “I’ll try that. One sec, honey.”

His eyes shifted up to mine, pleadingly, those compassionate big brown eyes, “Let him explain, pumpkin.”

I huffed, “Explain… explain how he’s going to make me wait another four months and not talk to me for ‘my own good.’ He can’t fancy it up, Terry! He either wants me or he doesn’t.”

Terry nodded for me and for Tom on my phone against his ear. His gaze faded to a far off look, listening to Tom again. I leaned over to get a tissue from my nightstand to dry my stubborn tears. Righting myself, I sighed heavily, miserably mumbling into my hands in my lap, “I’ve been patient… all this time.”

His focus back on me, my best friend tested, “Can I speak with sensible, level-headed Kristie for a minute?”

“I’ve been the sensible, level-headed, patient one since January. Nearly four months, I’ve been reasonable Kristie. He was impatient after two fucking weeks for me in London.” My voice rising with more hurt, I nearly shouted into the phone, “Remember that, Tom? Remember telling me how patient you were?” I pouted irrationally, the shrill emotional female in my head taking center stage.

The phone was silent. Terry reminded with no judgment, “And then he waited three months just for the chance to talk to you again, sweet cheeks, when you came back to New York.”

Petulantly I said, “I’m tired of the push and pull.”

Terry squeezed my hands in his before hooking strands of my hair behind my ear and wiping a rogue tear sliding down my cheek. In a twist, he was offering solidarity to both Tom and me. My Terry was stuck in the middle of our feelings for the other. “Five more minutes of sensible Kristie then you can go back to ranting. I have cookies and ice cream for us to gorge on. Just talk to Tom. Trust me.” He held my phone out to me, pressuring me to be reasonable and more like myself.

I took the phone from Terry, cursing both men silently in my head, possessed by my indignation. “Can we skip to the part that you pretend that I don’t exist without any declarations or preamble, Tom? It’ll be easier for me.”

Terry gave me a disapproving look with a slight shake of his head, pushing his eyebrows together above his prominent Italian nose. He mouthed silently, “Behave.”

“Kristie, my love,” Tom mollified gently, driving a verbal stake through my heart, robbing me of some of the anger I felt and replacing it with more melancholy. “While I understand your attitude, your hurt, your pain, I had hoped we could talk. Your impatience is justified.”

“Thanks for the permission,” the snark flew from my mouth with no thought or remorse. Diva Kristie wasn’t done singing her eleven o’clock number. I swiped at the constant stream of tears with my tissue, sniffing pathetically.

Tom sighed softly, resigned to the fact that I was wounded and fighting back. “Love, I’m not calling to break things off again. I don’t blame you for jumping to that conclusion, but I’m not… I’m… this… shit, Kristie, I’m not… I want to give you every reason to believe in us.”

My words. He’d used my words. Pathetically, I whispered, “I just want to see you.”

“I want to see you. To me, you are irresistible, don’t forget that. Fate seems to have another plan for us.”

I whimpered and then cried into my tissue, Terry stroking my arms to calm me. That small show of comfort only made the pain ache that much more. I could feel my heart cracking in my chest, and I couldn’t bare it.

“My beautiful Wilde one, my love, please don’t cry,” his voice broke, the timbre dropping to a lower register. “Listen, I don’t like this anymore than you do.”

I managed a choked, “Tom…” before falling prey to a fresh wave of despair. I hated that I was feeling this way, hated the situation we were in, and somehow couldn’t see past it. I was so looking forward to a brief reprieve from all the waiting, that losing it felt completely unbearable. I’d already survived four months without him, but another day was utter torture.

“I’m not… Kristiane, I know that you’re afraid that I’m going to ignore you. I’m not. I promised you, and that bit hasn’t changed. I want you.”

Desperately, gathering my tattered heart, I said, “You better.”

A tentative, sad chuckle sounded in my ear from the man too far away.

In an attempt to pull myself together, I steered the conversation away from the state of our relationship. “Paris, huh? Do you like Paris? I’ve never been,” I weakly confessed.

Bless him, but he understood what I needed, the distraction, some other thing to concentrate on. Tom told me stories of his journeys to Paris, spending a semester there, learning the language, some of his favorite spots along the Seine, his favorite café and bistro. As he flipped back and forth between English and broken French, though sexy as hell either way, I eased out of the distress of facing another few months without him.

Terry brought the Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies and a glass of milk to pep me back up. He’d attached a post-it note to the package when he handed it to me. ‘Replaced your cookies. Cheesecake later, my ladybug.’ I rolled my eyes at him and cracked a small grin, chasing the last of the sadness away. With the promise of cheesecake from Junior’s in Times Square as dinner when my phone call with Tom ended, I was functioning again. The mere thought of not seeing Tom was dire and panic inducing… somehow Terry and cheesecake made the situation manageable.

I still preferred Tom.

*

Two hours later, I was shoving the last mouthful of Strawberry Shortcake Cheesecake into my mouth when my phone buzzed. Muffled by too much sugar and cake, I answered Tom’s call with a hello that sounded more like a grunt.

“Enjoying dinner?” the charming Englishman greeted with a smile.

Gulping down enough to speak, I said, “Too much. But it’s okay, I have a new full time job.”

“Which is?”

“After 3500 calories for dinner alone, Terry’s got eight hour cardio days for me every day this week. I get cheesecake, but he’s not at all my favorite right now.”

Laughing, Tom eagerly changed topics, “Kristiane, I can’t promise you anything definitively, except my affection, but I don’t like this waiting for us. I’ve emailed my publicist, and we’re going to try to rearrange…”

“You have a publicist?”

“I do –  _now_. Hired him around the same time I landed this.”

“That’s pretty impressive, Shakespeare. You’re important and stuff.”

“I’ll go with ‘stuff’ but no more important than anyone else.”

“You have people.”

“I have a person… There’s another one I’m looking to right now.”

The coy turn of phrase stole my breath away as he meant me and I stared at Terry wide-eyed. He gave me a knowing smile and curt nod, digging into the last of his cheesecake.

“Kristiane, this isn’t about him. This is about us,  _you and me_. Luke is very good at what he does, and with his help, I might just get to New York after all.”


End file.
